When I left my apartment in Hertford (at 4:20am on Friday 1st Feb) I was collected in a nice Mercedes with blacked-out windows and taken to Heathrow.
Initially, I was to have 2 flights, one from Heathrow to Frankfurt (at 7:55) and the next from Frankfurt to Bangalore. The Franfurt flight was cancelled, so I ended up having to wait in the airport until 2:25pm! Thankfully, I had my iPod with me! I did check out the business/first class lounge, but it was just people reading the Financial Times, so I took a wander round the airport and watched the planes take off and land.
The flight was a British Airways flight and I was put into the upper floor of a 747. The business class was very nice, with each of us having our own cubicle with a flat reclining chair, a leg rest drop-down thing and our own small TV with movies, tv shows, radio, games etc. I could easily get used to business class!!When I arrived in Bangalore, the fun really began! My case and bag took quite a while to be offloaded from the plane (approx 1 hour wait at the carousel). My case and bag was marked with a chalk X; of course, I had no idea what that meant, so I ignored it. When I went through to leave the airport, I soon found out what the chalk X meant! My case and bag were taken from me, so I was a bit shocked at this as no explanation was given. When I enquired as to what was happening, it transpired that a chalk X meant that the bags had to be re-scanned for safety. This was when they discovered I had 2 laptops! Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, but a sign was pointed out to me which said one 1 laptop per person. They wanted me to pay import tax on the second laptop; I was happy to pay the import tax and I also explained that it was a work laptop and I would be returning to the UK with both laptops. I showed the customs officer my return ticket and he made a note on it that I had two laptops. Then, he wanted me to pay him some money, he said something like: lets say 1000 rupees. I explained I had no money and I was escorted to the cash machine by someone in uniform. After taking the money out, the uniformed guy wanted to take the money from me. There was no way I was just going to hand over money, so I went back to the customs desk and asked for a receipt before handing over my money. This seemed to cause a big problem and after lots of “you keep half, I keep half” from the customs officer, I held my ground and explained that I need a receipt several times. He started to write a receipt and paused, thought for a while, then handed me back all my money and my passport! So, always ask for a receipt and you may never have to pay for anything here!!
When I got outside, the place was mobbed with people, considering it was approx 6am, I was quite surprised at how busy it was. I found my driver (he had a big sign with my name on it) and he took my case and bag from me, then lots of people suddenly flocked around me and took my case and bag from the driver, moved it about a foot and then asked for money. Again, I explained I had no money and got into the vehicle. The door was held open by someone else, again asking for money, I had to again explain I had none and eventually, the door was closed for me. We were on our way.
The driver was asking me if I wanted to go sightseeing tomorrow (Sunday) so I said that I didn't as I would need to get some sleep. He then said he would pick me up on Monday to go to work. I asked if he was one of our regular drivers (we have two regular drivers to take us to and from work) and he said he was. So I asked if he was picking up one of the guys later on today (he was going shopping in Bangalore later on Saturday) the driver said that the other driver would be taking him. However, it turned out that this driver was NOT one of our regular drivers and on Saturday I emailed the drivers company to state I did not need his serevices on Monday – nevertheless, he turned up anyway on Monday morning wanting me to sign something. I declined to sign anything and he went away. He was very pushy and actually tried to push past and get into the house when the door was opened.
Anyway, on Saturday, I slept for a while and when my welcoming part of one returned, we talked for a while. I ordered pizza from Dominoes and stayed up nearly all night – got about 2 hours sleep then we went out to Bangalore on Sunday for most of the day. It was pretty good – there's so many shops and a huge western influence. There are lots of people trying to sell you things on the street and lots of people asking for money. When the cars stop at the traffic lights, young girls (about 8 or so) do some things with a metal hoop (they twist themselves through the hoop, do backflips and variations on this) then they come around knocking on the window asking for money. They seem to target anyone who is non-Indian. I picked up a DVD player for the apartment because there was not one in there. I brought to many DVDs with me that I felt I needed one. It was a decent player with DivX capability and in the shop they made it region free. When I got the player back home, it was not region free, so I found the code online and made it region free myself.
Yes, the traffic is crazy but you soon get used to it. There are rarely any road markings, so traffic just seems to go wherever it wants to. There does not seem to be any right of way, but there is no road rage at all. The horn is used constantly just to say to other drivers 'I'm here'. I saw a crash as I was coming from the airport and they closed the road off with a line of coconuts! The crashes seem to be infrequent, but often fatal.
We went to a grocery store and I bought a few things to eat for the next few days so I can try things out. There are a few things on sale from the UK, but they are very expensive because they have to be imported – they are possibly more expensive that they would be in the UK. Cheese's, in particular, are very expensive as they are the UK branded cheese. Thankfully, vegetarianism is the main way of life here, so it is very easy to be vegetarian here. Unfortunately, I was served chicken at ITPL (a large IT park with a kind of underground mall where we often go for lunch) even though I asked for a veg meal. There is no queueing system here either - the person with the longest arms generally gets served first, which suits me fine!The villa we are staying in is nice, even though it is quite new (built sometime within the last 10 years) it reminds me of a hotel that hasn't been updated since the 1970s! It is very spacious though and it has everything I will need for the next 6 months.
There is a small gym here and a couple of pools, so I plan to make use of the gym while I have the chance to. There's not much to do in the evenings in the villa, so the guys tend to go out a lot to different restaurants and other places. There's an awful lot to do in the evenings here and the drivers are so knowledgeable that they will just take you to wherever you want to go.
I've seen some great sights here. The wooden scaffolding and the name of my road just chalked onto a wall. Three people on a motorbike is pretty common, and some of the guys have seen 5! I've seen little gekko lizards running about the house, grasshoppers seem to be everywhere and mosquitos like to get hold of me too. There are huge contrasts everywhere; opposite a multi-million dollar IT building will be people living in tents on the side of the road. Everyone wants to sell you things and the little tuk-tuks always stop and ask if you want to go somewhere. The people here are the nicest people I have ever met - everyone is so happy and contents and completely non-agressive. The place is very very relaxed and chilled out. I really like it here and would be happy to stay.The people I am sharing with are all very nice and easy to get 
along with. They are keen to tell me all their experiences and take me out to places of interest. I'm happy to try everything possible. We were out last night to a party with the Indian couple who live in the same complex. The guy works in IT (most people in Bangalore work in IT) and his wife is a model who is often seen in the papers and on billboards around the city. She also has a degree in IT and worked in IT for a while. Apparently, if we give her some photos, she will pass them to her modelling agency who are crying out for westerns to appear in adverts. One of the guys from last year ended up in a Bollywood movie!! Might give it a go...
along with. They are keen to tell me all their experiences and take me out to places of interest. I'm happy to try everything possible. We were out last night to a party with the Indian couple who live in the same complex. The guy works in IT (most people in Bangalore work in IT) and his wife is a model who is often seen in the papers and on billboards around the city. She also has a degree in IT and worked in IT for a while. Apparently, if we give her some photos, she will pass them to her modelling agency who are crying out for westerns to appear in adverts. One of the guys from last year ended up in a Bollywood movie!! Might give it a go...
Work is good too. The setting is amazing and the food is so cheap! For a good meal it is about 20-40 rupees (about 25p - 50p). The people at work are great and helping me with all the things I need to be doing while I am here.
So, I love India. It is one of the countries that I never considered visiting, but I am loving every single minute of it.
